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Sunday, 23 September 2012

Killing Them Softly

Andrew Dominik’s Killing Them
Softly is based on George V. Higgins' novel about a professional enforcer Jackie
Cogan (Brad Pitt) who is asked to investigate and find out who robbed a mob protected
high stakes poker game. The two wannabe hustlers Frankie (Scoot McNairy) and Russell
(Ben Mendelsohn) are now prime targets for the mob. Killing Them Softly is a
grimy outlook of the mafia set in New Orleans. Throughout the film it seems as
if Dominik masked the United States from the “American dream country” to a deeply
pessimistic nation filled with hate and violence that is driven by the greed of
money. With a tough and beaten look Dominik still brings a great dark humour to
the screen with Scoot and Ben’s dialog and the unexpected heartfelt relationship
between the two hired hitmen Pitt and Mickey (James Gandolfini).

Jackie Cogan Killing Them Not So Softly

After watching The Assassination
of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford I just couldn’t wait to see Dominik
and Pitt work together again in Killing Them Softly. Pitt really does steal the
show with his stone cold killer performance. Pitt’s character is the typical
outlook of hired gun with some sort of conscience that he prefers to be in the shadows
of his killings "I like to kill them softly, at a distance,”. Never the
less he is a hit-man and his “it’s nothing personal its only business” existence
makes him a ruthless killer. The final scene is truly an Oscar nominee performance
with a terrifyingly and thrilling final speech that makes you glad that you’re
not in the same room as Jackie Cogan.

Jackie Cogan & Mickey

What really made an impact on
me was the unexpected relationship between the two hired Hitmen. It obvious
right away that the two have been friends for a great deal of time and have history.
We only see the two of them together in two scenes; the bar and the hotel room.
What I really admired is how Dominik in just two scenes we can almost compare
the two being the same person despite the fact Mickey’s life is going down the drain
with his marriage in shambles, the possibility of going to jail and becoming an
alcoholic. It almost as if Dominik wanted to show us that Jackie Cogan’s is
going to become Mickey in the future.